Sunday, September 29, 2002
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Ezk 18:25-28
The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows: You say: Yahweh's
way is not just! Why, Israel! Is my position wrong? Is it not rather that
yours is wrong? If the righteous man dies after turning from his righteous
deeds and sinning, he dies because of his sins. And if the wicked man
does what is good and right, after turning from the sins he committed,
he will save his life. He will live and not die, because he has opened
his eyes and turned from the sins he had committed.
2nd Reading: Phil 2:1-11
If I may advise you in the name of Christ and if you can hear it as the
voice of love; if we share the same spirit and are capable of mercy and
compassion, then I beg of you make me very happy: have one love, one spirit,
one feeling, do nothing through rivalry or vain conceit. On the contrary
let each of you gently consider the others as more important than yourselves.
Do not seek your own interest, but rather that of others. Let what was
seen in Christ Jesus be seen in you:
Though being divine in nature,
he did not claim in fact equality with God,
but emptied himself,
taking on the nature of a servant, made in human likeness,
and in his appearance found as a man.
He humbled himself by being obedient to death,
death on the cross.
That is why God exalted him
and gave him the Name which outshines all names,
so that at the Name of Jesus all knees should bend
in heaven, on earth and among the dead,
and all tongues proclaim that Christ Jesus is the Lord
to the glory of God the Father.
Gospel:
Mt 21:28-32
Jesus went on to say to the chief priests and the elders of the people,
"What do you think of this? A man had two sons. He went to the first
and said to him: 'Son, today go and work in my vineyard.' And the son
answered: 'I don't want to.' But later he thought better of it and went.
Then the father went to the second and gave him the same command. This
son replied: 'I will go, sir,' but he did not go.
Which of the two did what the father wanted?" They answered, "The
first." And Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you: the publicans
and the prostitutes are ahead of you on the way to the kingdom of heaven.
For John came to show you the way of goodness but you did not believe
him, yet the publicans and the prostitutes did. You were witnesses of
this, but you neither repented nor believed him."
Commentary
A very strong judgment is passed on the religious leaders of Jesus' times. Even the eschatological reversal is already here. Those put at the margins of society are now included among co-humans, nay close to the living God, after they have believed the good news of God's reign previously preached also by John the Baptist. These were the ones who gave a more generous credence to Jesus' teaching and life-enhancing deeds. Such a pronouncement must have shocked Jesus' contemporaries. For, who would be better expected to believe the good news but the religious leaders? But, lo and behold, they were the first ones to exclude themselves from God's reign by not changing their minds and hearts. Sometimes we again meet such situations in today's world. The unchurched show greater openness to the renewal demanded in becoming a church of the poor.